Georgian and the Kartvelian languages
When I mention I’m learning Georgian, people don’t always know a lot about the language - I get questions such as “Oh, is that related to Russian?” or “Is that like Turkish?” or such questions. Sometimes people will know Georgian is not related to either Russian or Turkish, but then they’ll ask me if it’s related to Armenian, or otherwise if it’s a language isolate. I thought I’d clear up some of some of the confusion, and offer y’all a look into the history of this unique and fascinating language.
Georgian is not Indo-European - it isn’t related either to Russian or Armenian. It’s not a Turkic language either, nor is it a Semitic language. A few people have tried even connecting it with Basque, but there is no linguistic evidence for this. Rather, Georgian is the largest member of the Kartvelian family - a family named after the Georgian word for a Georgian, ქართველი (kartveli). The other languages in the family are: Mingrelian, Laz, and the highly divergent Svan - in the following paragraphs I’ll talk a little bit about these languages.
Mingrelian, known as მარგალური ნინა (margaluri nina) in Mingrelian, or მეგრული ენა (megruli ena) in Georgian, is spoken by around 500,000 people in the region of Mingrelia, known as სამარგალო (samargalo) in Mingrelian or სამეგრელო (samegrelo) in Georgian, shown here:
It also had speakers in Abkhazia until the war.
Mingrelian has some sounds that Georgian doesn’t have, such as a glottal stop (the sudden break in the middle of the word uh-oh), written with the letter ჸ (though in general, these languages are mostly spoken, and seldom written). In addition, it has some grammatical divergences from Georgian, such as the existence of a few more cases and a separate set of conditional screeves on verbs (if you want to learn more about screeves in Georgian, check out my post).
Laz, known as ლაზული ნენა (lazuri nena) in Laz or ლაზური ენა (lazuri ena) in Georgian, is spoken by around 22,000 people mostly in Turkey:
The language itself is very similar to Mingrelian - in fact, these languages are sometimes considered two dialects of a single language, but in general are considered separate, especially considering the separation between the Mingrelian-speaking and Laz-speaking communities nowadays.
Svan, known as ლუშნუ ნინ (lušnu nin) in Svan and სვანური ენა (svanuri ena) in Georgian, is spoken by 10,000 people in Svaneti, known as შჳა̈ნ (shwän) in Svan or სვანეთი (svaneti), shown here:
As a side note, it’s *incredibly beautiful*:
Due to its remote mountainous setting, Svan is highly divergent from the other Kartvelian languages, forming a separate branch of the family:
Svan has several sounds not present in any of the other Kartvelian languages, such as /f/, /qʰ/, and /w/, some of which were present in Old Georgian - some dialects even have vowels such as /y/ and /ø/ (the ü and ö of German) or /æ/ (the a in “bat”). Grammatically as well, Svan is highly divergent - it for example makes a distinction between inclusive we (we including you) and exclusive we (not including you), a distinction present in Old Georgian but otherwise nowhere else in the Kartvelian family. It also has two sets of preverbs - directional elements preceding verbs analogous to verbal prefixes like deduct, induct, abduct, etc. - where other Kartvelian languages only have one.
There’s in addition one important dialect I’ve got to mention - Judaeo-Georgian, known as ყივრული ენა (qivruli ena), is the traditional dialect of the Georgian Jews, a community with a history of over 2000 years in Georgia, and has a speaker base of 85,000, now mostly in Israel. In common with other Jewish languages, it has a large base of Hebrew and Aramaic loanwords - in addition, it has a few distinct differences from standard Georgian, such as the presence of a plural object marker -ე (-e) that does not exist in Standard Georgian, or the dropping of final -s with compensatory lengthening of the previous vowel.
Here are a few Proto-Kartvelian roots, and their descendants on modern Kartvelian languages:
PK: *šwidi “seven”
Georgian: švidi
Mingrelian: škviti
Laz: škvit
Svan: išgwid
PK: *stkwen “y’all”
Georgian: tkven
Mingrelian: tkva(n)
Laz: tkvan
Svan: sgäy
PK: *t’q’ub- “twins”
Georgian: t’q’up-
Mingrelian: t’q’up-, t’q’ub-
Laz: t’q’ub-, t’k’ub-
Svan: t’q’wib-
